The Secret Guests by Benjamin Black

During World War II, two million children were separated from their parents and sent out to the country to live with strangers in order to have them in a safer place.  This novel imagines what would have happened if the royal children, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, had been among those children.  The two girls are sent away to Ireland, as it was a neutral state, to an estate owned by an old Duke, in exchange for monthly shipments of coal which Ireland was in need of.

Of course, the girls are not send alone.  Celia Nashe is a young secret agent and is sent along to serve as their protector, although she is designated to the outside world as their nanny.  In addition, a member of the Irish Garda, Strafford, who actually grew up himself on a landed estate, is assigned as the liaison with the local police.  There are also military who guard the borders of the estate.

For the girls, the biggest threat is boredom.  They are homesick and there isn't much to do with their host not seen except at meals.  They are their only company and must entertain themselves with reading and riding horses and whatever else they can do.

But it isn't all boredom.  The local IRA is very interested in 'Ellen' and 'Mary', the names the girls are going by in an attempt to remain anonymous.  But its hard to hide any newcomers in the country where any small event is news for talk.  There are servants in the Hall with local families to repeat any tidbit and men who come and go to the estate.  Soon the identities of the girls are open secrets and the men who are always looking for a way to hurt England are scheming to take advantage of this gift dropped in their laps.  Are the girls safer or more in danger?

Benjamin Black is the pen name of the novelist John Banville.  As a Booker Prize winner, I expected more from this novel but the action was all pushed to the end of the book and everything at the climax happened rapidly.  The characters were not as well developed as I had hoped for either.  This book is recommended for readers of thrillers and those interested in World War II literature.